Racism Rears Its Ugly Head Once More on Social Media- December 2016

Vanessa Hartley created chaos on social media on the 5th December 2016 by posting on Facebook that there are too many Africans flocking to Hout Bay and they are like animals who should be tied to a rope. A number of South Africans from all race groups responded by condemning and shaming her for the racist and offensive post. Hartley later and apologised and claimed that she left her phone unattended and was not responsible for the post. This despite a second response from her being oblivious to how damaging her initial post was. The Hout Bay Civic Association and Western Cape ANC has reportedly laid a complaint against her with the Human Rights Commission.

Reminiscent of the start of 2016 which was regrettably marked by a wildfire of exchanges in racial insults on social media. The usual festivities were replaced by tweets, re-tweets and posts of Penny Sparrow after taking to Facebook referring to black people as uneducated monkeys. She was later found guilty of hate speech by the Equality Court and ordered to pay R150 000 to the Tambo foundation. Other individuals also made frontline news throughout the year for making controversial and offensive statements, Gareth Cliff, Judge Mabel Jansen, Julius Malema, Pastor Andre Olivier, Velaphi Khumalo and Chris Hart to mention a few.